


Train of Thought

by oneshycrow



Series: Bringer of Light [3]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Angst, Brain Damage, F/F, Female Character of Color, Fluff, Gen, Post-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-11
Updated: 2017-07-11
Packaged: 2018-12-01 01:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11475732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oneshycrow/pseuds/oneshycrow
Summary: Talking about the past, whether it be her own or that of the world’s, always seemed to bring back these kinds of memories - beautiful and nostalgic, but now clouded with grief.





	Train of Thought

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a One Word Prompt Challenge on the New Fallout Kink Meme (http://newfalloutkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/)
> 
> The one word I chose was "Railroad." **This may spoil parts of the WIP ending to Fio, Fieri, Factus.** Don't read if you don't want that. This was also vaguely inspired by that one train scene in Life is Strange.

“What do you think these were used for?” Luca says as she and Veronica walk along the railroad tracks, the two century old wooden planks creaking beneath their feet. After she’d left her small canyon tribe, Luca had followed these trails all the way to the Mojave in the hopes they’d lead her somewhere different. All the while, she never saw many people doing the same. Even now, with the roads to the major cities covered with every type of danger one could imagine in the Wastes, these strange tracks are consistently barren. Veronica gives her a puzzled look, kicking a piece of orange rock with her boot.

“What do you mean?” Luca rolls her eyes, wondering if the scribe is still having some difficulty understanding her. Since her injury, her speech has been slurred and her mind scrambled a bit. She wonders if she still isn’t talking as clearly as she thinks.

“This path. What was its purpose? I never see anyone using them. Did people forget how?” She emphasizes the question by hopping onto the metal rail, her arms spreading out like an eagle to keep her balance as she continues walking. The sun is far to the West now, and the rail glitters like silver in the dying light - something Luca finds to be very beautiful, and yet very forlorn. 

Veronica raises her eyebrows at the question, but holds her tongue. She has to remember that Luca is still recovering, and what might seem like an obvious question is just her trying to regain the knowledge she once had.

“These are railroad tracks. Trains used them to deliver goods back before the war.” She states, stepping up onto the rail opposite of Luca’s. She too holds her arms out, balancing on the metal like one of the beautiful tightrope walkers she had once seen on one of Luca’s favorite holotapes, now sitting unused in their small farmhouse. Talking about the past, whether it be her own or that of the world’s, always seemed to bring back these kinds of memories - beautiful and nostalgic, but now clouded with grief.

Luca lets out a quiet hum, wracking her brain for an image of a train. She remembers learning about them with the Follower’s when she was young, or she thinks she does. The word was familiar, at least. 

Veronica glances over at the other woman and sees the strain on her face. She knows firsthand the potential locked inside Luca’s brain, and how some days she showed almost no sign of anything being wrong. Today is an off day for sure, and it fills Veronica with guilt and sorrow. She just can’t imagine what it would be like to wake up one day and only have vague memories of who she was, and what she knew, before. It was especially painful to know how much Luca had sacrificed for the people of the Mojave, the same people who now sidestepped her on the streets of New Vegas and spoke about her only in hushed tones.

“Lulu.” She says softly, reaching her hand out toward the other woman. Luca glances over at the use of her recent nickname, a bright flush of red reaching her cheeks when she sees Veronica’s outstretched hand. She gives her a bashful smile and reaches out as well, and they lock fingers before continuing on their way.

\---  
Luca lies awake that night, looking down the tracks from their tent nestled up on the cliff side. Veronica is sound asleep next to her, her scribe’s hood pulled up over her head to protect her ears from the noises of the night. Unlike her partner, Luca enjoys the sounds, enjoys trying to pick each one out and remember which animal, which element, which gun they were coming from. She hears coyotes howling, crickets chirping… and the faint grating sound of metal on metal.

Curious about the noise she props herself up on her elbows, wriggling out from her sleeping bag and leaning closer to the edge to peer around the corner of the canyon. She can see a trail of smoke travelling up to the sky, tickling the moon with it’s wisp-like fingers. Veronica doesn’t stir a bit, and the coyotes do not stop their howling. It’s simply a trick of her mind, something she’s had to get used to recently, and for once it doesn’t bother her.

A train, a bright chrome steam engine curves around the mountain below her, its shiny rail wheels sparking even without truly making contact with the dilapidated tracks below. It speeds along where she and Veronica were travelling a few hours before, its frame seeming to breathe as it moves, its smoke seemingly alive as it curls into the sky. It’s a ghost train, a figment of Luca’s fractured imagination, and for once it isn’t something scary, isn’t something disappointing or sickening. It simply is. It’s simply there.

Its whistle sounds as it passes their encampment, and Luca must cover her ears to escape the deafening roar of the wheels as it hurtles by. She is awe-stricken in that moment, and a single tear rolls down her cheek at the staggering view before her. In her mind beaten numb by the hardships of life, broken by the miseries she had been forced to bear on her shoulders, this one moment entices out whatever ounce of true emotion she had left buried deep beneath her surface. 

For a split second she closes her eyes to rub the tears away, and when she looks back up the train is gone and, once again, nothing is left in its tracks.


End file.
